Vintage car culture goes full throttle in Los Altos

By Gary Anderson, Special to the Town Crier

Los Altos residents Marlene and Chet Zimmerman show off their vintage 1912 and 1904 Franklin automobiles.

For the past two years, by 9 a.m. nearly every Saturday morning the parking plaza off State Street behind Main Street Cafe & Books is filled with a wide variety of older cars of every shape, age, body style and description. Yet this is just the tip of the iceberg of classic car ownership in Los Altos. Who are the people who drive these cars and how did this phenomenon get started in this little Peninsula town?

To answer the question, we talked to Paul Averill, a Thunderbird collector and one of the regulars around the table in the Chat Room at the back of the cafe most Saturday mornings. According to Averill, classic cars have been a big hobby in Los Altos for as far back as he can remember.

The weather on the Peninsula is favorable for keeping older cars in good condition. The roads nearby invite automobile enthusiasts to sample their curves through the hills and valleys between here and the ocean, and the population has enough discretionary income to indulge their desires for classic cars. Consequently, one will find concentrations of classic car owners in almost every small town between San Francisco and Monterey.

Concours shows and automobile races have been an integral part of the motoring scene in this area since the first events were staged in Pebble Beach and Golden Gate Park just after World War II. A major world-class car show now takes place every year at Pebble Beach, and widely respected concours are held annually in Hillsborough and Palo Alto.

Some of the biggest hot-rod shows in the world take place in nearby Pleasanton, Oakland and at the San Francisco Cow Palace. Smaller car shows are a feature of many community gatherings.

Consequently, Averill was not surprised when, 15 years ago, a friend in the Los Altos Chamber of Commerce who knew of his interest in old cars asked him to help arrange a small car show as an attraction at the Los Altos Fall Festival.

“It took some phone calls and a little arm-twisting,” Averill remembered, “but I was able to get about 25 friends to show their cars that first year. We didn’t have much space, but we were able to put 15 cars on display each day. From the beginning, the owners have enjoyed the opportunity to be a part of these events, and the community organizers have become more and more enthusiastic about the shows over the years.”

Since then, the car show at the Fall Festival has been a regular event. In addition, the classic car community of Los Altos began to participate actively in a variety of different events throughout the year to support the community and share their love affair with the automobile.

The Fall Festival car show is probably the biggest of the local events, with up to 125 cars on display over the two days. As Averill organized the show, the judging is informal, with awards given by the mayor and police chief of Los Altos, the principal of Los Altos High School, the publisher of the Los Altos Town Crier and the director of the Palo Alto Concours.

After managing the organization of the event, maintaining the lists of participants and overseeing the arrangements for about 10 years, Averill recently transferred responsibility to Bob Mabe, now the go-to person in town whenever anyone needs a few special cars to dress up an event.

Mabe has been very creative in increasing the number of events for classic cars and the way cars are selected.

Some of those events include the Festival of Lights Parade, Kiwanis Pet Parade and high school homecoming parades each year, with the bigger and more impressive touring cars providing appropriate classic transportation for festival dignitaries.

With the History House and Los Altos History Museum now a proud centerpiece of the civic center, classic car displays in conjunction with museum events, especially the annual Community Picnic in August, have become a tangible symbol of the town’s progress and its continuing love affair with automobiles.

“I think our best show yet,” Mabe enthused, “was at the 2004 picnic, soon after the museum opened. We were able to have at least one show-quality car on display from every decade since 1900, covering the entire period that Los Altos has been here.”

Mabe said that it’s never hard to find just the right car for an event, and the owners are always willing to cooperate.

“For example,” he explained, “when the museum opened its ‘Red, White and Blue’ exhibit of American flags, we had three American cars - a red 1929 Franklin, a white 1959 Thunderbird and a blue 1955 Oldsmobile - on display for the occasion.”

The group, called the Donut Derelicts, gathers Saturday mornings at the Main Street Cafe. They grew out of a sidewalk conversation near the conclusion of the car show at the 2004 Fall Festival. As we had in many previous years, owners of the cars on display commented to one another that the diversity, quality and quantity of cars maintained by local collectors was unbelievable. We lamented the fact that there were so few opportunities for us to get together to enjoy one another’s cars and tap one another’s experience and expertise in maintaining them.

Someone suggested we designate a regular place and time where anyone with an interest in cars could come and hang out for an hour or two in the same way that we had been doing at the Fall Festival.

After considering a few alternatives, the Main Street Cafe & Books and Saturday mornings were suggested. The cafe offered a comfortable indoor atmosphere for conversations over coffee and breakfast treats. The Chat Room tables looked out on a parking lot that was pretty much available until at least 10:30 a.m. What could be better?

So with no more planning and consideration than that, the group decided to meet at the cafe the next Saturday and see who would show up. Surprisingly, about 10 cars were parked in the lot by 9:30 a.m. and 15 enthusiasts were sitting around a table in the Chat Room.

Ever since, with absolutely no further organization except to ask owner/manager Jamie Tomaselli to reserve the tables, every Saturday morning has seen a varied group of cars in the parking lot and car folk around the table. On a bright, warm Saturday morning, the parking lot may be packed with 25 or more cars and the crowd inside will push the limits of tables and chair; on a dreary, cold day, the group may dwindle to half a dozen. No matter what, there hasn’t been a Saturday when the table or parking lot was empty.

Soon after the gathering became an accepted item on our calendars, we talked about a name for ourselves. Someone suggested we adopt the name used by similar car groups in Southern California who meet at local donut shops - the Donut Derelicts - and the name has stuck.

On a recent Saturday, the regular derelicts were out in force. Mickey Jones arrived in the 1955 Jaguar XK120 he has owned since it was new, though he sometimes comes in his much newer bright red Jaguar XK8. “I guess I’ve always just liked Jags,” he said.

Bob Jacobsen drove up in his 1937 Buick, because his Pierce Arrow from the same period is undergoing engine work, though he occasionally arrives in his unrestored primer gray XK120. “It may not be pretty, but it runs just fine,” he said. “I don’t intend to restore it until it stops running.”

A highlight of the morning, as always, was the arrival of Chet and Marlene Zimmerman. “Our tastes are a little more focused than some car collectors,” Chet said. “We’ve got other cars, but there’s always just been something about the air-cooled Franklins that sets them apart, so most of our collection is devoted to them.” Chet and Marlene can always be counted on for something unusual, and that Saturday morning their carriage was their lovely 1912 Franklin touring car with its impressive canvas top over polished wood supports. When they were ready to go home, Marlene gave us all a demonstration of how these cars had to be cranked to start.

Peter Landsbergen arrived soon after in his very rare Wills Ste. Claire, though he frequently comes in his 1937 Packard. Paul Logan parked his equally big and impressive 1937 Buick Special convertible.

The Detroit iron group was also well represented, with George Bassi in his 1955 Chevy Belair, though he could easily have come in a 1932 Ford Roadster hot rod; Curtis Parisi in a 1969 Mustang instead of his 1950 Ford Woodie; and Brian Davis in one of his Ford hot rods. During the morning, a continuing stream of other interesting cars came and went, including an MGB GT, a Triumph TR4, a Citroen 2CV, a Ferrari and an MG TD.

Averill and Mabe agreed. “It’s just another typical Saturday morning for our Los Altos gearheads,” said Averill.

Gary Anderson, the Town Crier’s automobile reporter, is a regular among the Donut Derelicts, with his 1956 MGA race car, 1959 Austin-Healey 3000 and 1964 Jaguar Mk2. We thank Bob Mabe and Paul Averill who helped prepare this article.